USF1 -- F1's All-American Challenger

[cooper-climax]

I was never one for "Bringing America to F1" But if they can spread the good word of Cajun cooking to the world I'm all for that!

[Professor]

Thanks prof, let me add;

E) PeeWee hires a Nawlins Professor to develop a new and secret BBQ-sauce recipe.

No BBQ sauce, but we have sent a Voodoo queen to Wirth Engineering.

[Roger the knife]

Thanks prof, let me add;

E) PeeWee hires a Nawlins Professor to develop a new and secret BBQ-sauce recipe.

No BBQ sauce, but we have sent a Voodoo queen to Wirth Engineering.

Would that be the "Witch queen of New Orleans" ?

[Mr Alcatraz]

I was never one for "Bringing America to F1" But if they can spread the good word of Cajun cooking to the world I'm all for that!

You like shrimp?
Well, come on down to Bay St. Louis,
We cook you up a mess 'o shrimp
I guaran'damn’ty it!

[Pandamasque]

Back on topic. Does it actually counts as participation if J Lo will run a flying lap of the elongated Bahrain circuit in his overalls and helmet trying to qualify, while Ian performs a flute solo on the pit wall with shrimps dancing around the toasters? With no car they will need some ingenuity.

[xpensive]

If Ian can find the fitting lyrics, like "Sitting in the pit lane, eyeing lucky Mike with bad intent...", then ok I guess?

"Cross-eyed PeeWee" would get them on the grid, I swear!

[Professor]

I was thinking of something dedicated to this forum, "Thick as a Brick."

[madtown77]

Well, if everyone is done trampling on their grave, I suggest you give a listen to the following podcasts.

http://media.wforadio.com/archives/arch ... lo-wed.mp3

The interview is with Bob Varsha from SpeedTV. Overall, he had a very honest take on the whole thing in general regarding how they (Windsor/Anderson) underestimated the scale of the task (even regarding American drivers), but seemed really optimistic regarding their progress.

He says "4 weeks ago" one car was being plumbed and wired and the second was coming out of the autoclave. The interview was from the 11th (yesterday). So, based on this, the video we saw of the wiring was about a week and a half old.

Couple this with Eric Warren's twitter post (Aero chief) saying the tooling was just being finished (couple days ago) for the diffuser and I think its clear that the Cosworth engines are not the issue. I'm guessing that since we haven't heard any murmuring from Cosworth that they paid their due for this year's engine supply, but have no car in which to insert it.

In another interview with formula1blog.com he goes onto say that they are having financial issues, but seems to be positive in both.

http://www.formula1blog.com/2010/02/12/ ... interview/

Seems like they are too busy to deny rumors, but others might be able to step in for them.

[madtown77]

Also, lot of good it did Virgin to test this week. 18 seconds off the pace and a front wing so flimsy it was dragging the end-plates on the ground.

Say what you will about USF1, but Virgin has shown even more incompetence in my opinion. They missed their OWN launch date and their car is extremely flashy looking, but designed by idiots who couldn't run FEA software apparently.

You know how it goes, better to be thought the fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt...

At least USF1 have got their heads down and not embarrassing themselves on the test track. I'd rather they take the time and get things working first.

[Confused_Andy]

At least Virgin could test their car to tell it was 7 (current time) seconds off the pace and they had a dud wing.

When USF1 hit the track who knows what will happen because they haven't tested at all, so imagen, come Bahrain, 20 seconds off the pace, their wing falls off and hits someone, the race gets a saftey car and buggers up everyone's day, Virgin can now react upon what feedback they've got an improve where USF1 have nothing to improve upon.

Stop sticking up for a joke team because their your nationality, USF1 and Campos (not American I know) are a joke, simple as, David Richards & Lola should have been chosen instead from the beginning.

American's arn't good at everything, you have Steve Jobs and McDonalds that the world loves, the UK has F1 teams that turn up to testing and GP's and PG Tips tea lol.

[madtown77]

At least Virgin could test their car to tell it was 7 (current time) seconds off the pace and they had a dud wing.

Pretty sure I haven't seen too many failures that bad before. Any idiot who has an engineering degree could have looked at that wing design on paper and with a couple of scratch calculations have told you it would fail. So how dumb do you have to be to miss that as a group of professionals?

[christopher.mahlon]

At least Virgin could test their car to tell it was 7 (current time) seconds off the pace and they had a dud wing.

Pretty sure I haven't seen too many failures that bad before. Any idiot who has an engineering degree could have looked at that wing design on paper and with a couple of scratch calculations have told you it would fail. So how dumb do you have to be to miss that as a group of professionals?

I don't recall you chiming in over on the relevant thread when the car was launched with your misgivings. This is the USF1 thread, guys. No need to talk about Virgin and its troubles here.

I'm surprised this thread is still so popular. Absolutely nothing is happening as far as I can tell with the team. On the 8th there was a tweet from one of the employees saying, "Got some positive developments." Nothing from the team since then.

Speed's reporting that Lopez's agent thinks the car will get crash tested next week. We'll see.

[WhiteBlue]

Speaking of confused people. Those two podcasts were great to listen to although much was repetitive. I think that Bob Varsha got the non refueling issue and Michael Schumacher slightly wrong. Unless I'm terribly mistaken Michael drove his first non refueling F1 race in 1991 with Jordan in Belgium. He then went on for some 37 races with Benetton and full fuel load until they introduced the space age refueling rigs in 1994.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyZpASrVAsc[/youtube]

I guess Michael was lucky that it caught out the other poor SOB when Walkinshaw and Briatore had some creative engineering done to the fuel rig. Hopefully one day those things will come to the light of day. Anyway Bob Varsha seemed to think they were already refueling back in 1991.

Back to Andy and the confusion and to USF1. I have a huge soft spot for the team due to their attitude and the diversity they could bring to F1. Bob V. is right that no other team literally had to start from scratch.

Virgin had Nick Wirth's company as a nucleus.

Lotus have a stash of grey and non grey matter that Gascoyne could pull out of the hat or pull over from Cologne.

Campos simply bought the complete car from Dallara.

What did USF1 have to start with? Nothing but two guys who were determined to tackle the whole shebang and get it done. They had to build everything from scratch. Every office, work shop, computer file, HR, manufacturing technology, European base, aero testing, crash testing and logistics had to be re invented to reflect their unique effort of doing it from the US.

I really think that F1 will be a lot poorer if that team will miss the boat. I'm keeping my fingers (and toes) crossed for them. Everybody can buy a team be it Toyboata or Greater Serbia, but building a team from scratch on a continent other than Europe would be something special for Formula 1 and the world.

[Hangaku]

Yeah, well my dad is an ex-boxer and he can beat your dad up

[Chaparral]

At least Virgin could test their car to tell it was 7 (current time) seconds off the pace and they had a dud wing.

Pretty sure I haven't seen too many failures that bad before. Any idiot who has an engineering degree could have looked at that wing design on paper and with a couple of scratch calculations have told you it would fail. So how dumb do you have to be to miss that as a group of professionals?

The last time Wirth had a wing failure (Simtek) it killed the driver Roland Ratzenberger